Manufacturer: General Aircraft

Model: G.A.L. 62

Name: Super Universal

Type: Transport

Date:

Status: Demonstrator

Country: Britain

Service: Royal Air Force (evaluation)

Designation: none

The General Aircraft GAL.62 Super Universal was an eight-engine freighter developed at the same time as the smaller GAL.60 Universal Freighter and with capability for combined troop, freight and vehicle transport. It was thought that the GAL.62 would represent a great option for India and the prototype was test-flown there in 1949 (as seen in this ad's picture).

However, the company had already been merged with Blackburn, and the recent independence of India made the market opportunities a lot less attractive there. All development of the Super Universal was therefore halted, and the effort was placed on the smaller Universal Freighter, which developed into the Blackburn Beverley...

This particular creation displays one of the things I love best: not just creating an imaginary aircraft but actually setting it into a plausible context, either a fake company document or a fake period advertisement.

Fuselage was elongated, wings were enlarged, tail was redesigned with triple fins, engine number was doubled... Textual elements are taken from real aviation ads of that period for a more realistic feel. A color filter was then applied to the whole thing to simulate paper that was yellowed with the passing of time.

• How interesting. it looks very authentic.(ONI-Defense)
• Love it!    (PR19_Kit)
• Looks like GAL was contracted by Howard Hughes! Like that illustration. It looks like, from the terrain, that the GAL 62 is letting down into a really tricky mountain valley airfield. Not as dicey as the one seen in Air America, but something out of the History Channel's docu on "Worlds Strangest Airports". (RussC)
• I had to take a second look!! (McColm)

That's the idea! LOL   I love to create fake old articles and ads!